Sinking of Sibu 2007

The Central Market area by day, by night there is no more Central Market. I can't even differentiate which one is the road and which one is the river by sundown. Don't be surprised if one of those express boats is seen floating near the Tua Pek Kong at 2am, the peak of the king tide. Oh and this area is a good spot to fish for ikan buris and floating durians left by vendors who were caught by the rising water lol

Once again Kampua Town is below sea level on the annual king tide flood. But what makes this year's flood special is that it is as bad as the big über flood in 2002. But still, this is nothing compared to the 1967 über flood that literally sunk Kampua Town around 10 feet below sea level (lol, I have no credible source to support this, I just took a wild guess how deep it was based on the old '67 photos and how my past grandma used to talk about it).

The annual flood usually last for a week with peak king tide at the mid-week, so '07 flood is scheduled to last from 11th - 17th December. And this year the peak time is around 2am (How I know? I always play online till 3-4am, and my room is overlooking the neighboring Kampung Abang Barieng and see the water rising every time I glance outside the window while waiting for the loadings to complete)

So anyways the area affected were almost 85.7% of Kampua Town by night 2, 25.3% more than what I've estimated. Apart from the flood hot spots such as Lanang and all the 3 kampongs along the Sungai Bidut, areas towards the inland were also affected as shown on the map below.

To non-Sibuian here's Sibu composition: Southern part we have Upper and Lower Lanang and Pedada, above that is downtown area where Sarawak's tallest building is located, then its Tun Abg Hj Openg and moving on northward... ah heck this is going to be loso, come down Kampua Town and will I give you a personal tour around town ^^

From the map we can see all the areas along Sungai Bidut are in red (that means it's affected by the flood la, I would've put it into different colors to show the level of the flood but it's so ma fan so I just put them all red). No need to say much about the southern part of Kampua Town, as Upper Lanang and Lower Lanang was below sea level like usual. The same goes to Kampung Dato', Jackfruit Village (argh, hilfe!) and Kampung Abang Barieng along the river. Inland a bit we have Central Market, Brooke Drive, Delta, Deshon and Jln Tun Abang Hj Openg sunk by the second night. More inland we have Oya and Pedada, and anything beyond that I have no news of. But words of mouth confirms that areas at the outskirt of town like Teku to the north and Sibu Jaya to the northeast were also below sea level. Global warming at its best...

Well my area in Jackfruit Village IS flooded, but not severe until the level where the water seeps into the houses. I can see why the ancestral Melanaus settled at this part of Sungai Bidut during the exodus ages ago as this area apparently is the highest point closest to the river, or in engineering terms we have high foundations. The only homes that sunk in Jackfruit village were those in low lying area (on second night I counted only 4-6 houses had water seeping in, and only 1 totally sunk 18 inch deep).

I meant to put up more pic, but have to forward my sorries because the quality isn't that good (unless you are charitable enough to donate a good hp camera). So anyways, the flood was bad yes, but only for the early 2 nights and then the teh c peng water returned to the Bidut River. And Borneo Post is seriously exaggerating it when they post a flooded rural area and then post a title "Sibu is flooded" on top of it. So misleading... Well yeah Sibu division is flooded, but not Kampua Town itself, just some areas outside town that is badly flooded.

Well the experience during the flood was new this year, considering the Rescue forces were noticeably in action (finally?). You might have been woken up by the Rescue sirens and helicopters (i know I did, crud...) and can say it's something ala Katrina rescue ops in New Orleans, only smaller in scale. Oh yeah, I heard the rescue forces evacuated their families first on the first night, and then they rescued the other victims the next day (ain't it suppose to be the other way around? Lol haihz... -_-)

Now that it's the 16th, I can't see how the town can be flooded again after Borneo Post headline was "Brace for the worse" yesterday, unless the post was late by 2 days... So I guess that's the end of the 2007 flood, which almost match up to the one 5 years ago. To those still in areas that are still flooded be careful of the flood refugees like scorpions, snakes, car thieves (especially those who had to park cars by the roadside), lipan, cholera etc. and finally, don't play-play in the water. You KNOW what is in that teh c peng waters... :)